Bo Diddley 2014

If compiler Neil Slaven was an axe hero, he says he would favour a Danelectro Guitarlin, with its longhorn body, its lipstick pickups and coke-bottle machine head. Perhaps he d settle for the red Gretsch Duo-Jet Bo Diddley sported on his first album cover. That puts him out of step with most of the guitarists gathered on Deep Feeling. Albert King favoured the Flying V, Buddy Guy liked the metallic clatter of a Strat and Muddy Waters slashed his slide down a Telecaster neck. Semi-acoustics were the name of the game for the average blues guitarist. B.B. King and Little Milton took an early shine to the Gibson ES-335 (our cover star incidentally, in rare original watermelon cherry finish), although B s Lucille was actually a slimline 355…

Various Artists - Please Don't Freeze! Early Black Rock'n Roll (2014) {Trikont Records US-0451 rec 1950's}
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© 1950's, 2014 Trikont Records | US-0451
Rock and Roll / Rhythm and Blues / Blues

It’s been a while coming, but here we finally get Trikont’s third volume in their amazing Early Black Rock ‘N Roll series. As before, the intent is to present real American rock ‘n roll as it first emerged in the late 1940s-early 1950s, before the music’s black roots were de-emphasised and it was cleaned up for consumption by the middle class white America of Richie Cunningham, Ralph Malph and Potsie. These 26 knock-out tracks certainly deliver on this - or, in the words of Nik Cohn in the booklet’s notes, ‘compared to the sentimentalism of white music, (hearing the originals) was like a window being opened to let the stale air out’.

After two critically acclaimed but only moderately selling albums, los Lobos were hired to record songs for the film biography of Hispanic '50s rocker Ritchie Valens, resulting in this soundtrack album, which, in addition to eight los Lobos recordings, features tracks by Marshall Crenshaw, Brian Setzer, and others. los Lobos' remake of the title song topped the charts, as did this album, which went on to sell two million copies. The result has been something of a career dilemma for the band, who went back to being a critically acclaimed, modest seller afterward.

After the rather dull Works, Vol. 1, the highly underrated Works, Vol. 2 is a godsend. Works, Vol. 1 took their pompous, bombastic, keyboard-driven prog rock epics to the limit; had it been stripped of its excesses and coupled with the strongest cuts from Works, Vol. 2, the band may have had an enormous success with critics and fans alike…